The baby cage craze never really caught on in New York City in the early 1900s

It probably sounded like a worthy solution at the time, a way for babies living in airless city tenements to get fresh air and sunshine.

Both were absolutely essential to development, according to an influential 1884 childcare book by Luther Emmett Holt, MD. Holt was a pioneering pediatrician and the head of New York City’s first Babies’ Hospital in 1889. In his book, Holt advocated “airing out” infants to “renew and purify the blood.”

“In the crowded sections of the big cities the ‘baby brigade,’ with a nurse girl or mother standing watch over each infant, has long been a familiar sight,” stated one New York newspaper in 1913. “If a baby is to thrive it must, of course, be kept out in the open air and sunshine.”

But as the newspaper also noted, “this has meant that somebody must constantly stand guard to see that no harm befalls” the baby.

Enter the baby cage, invented by Mrs. Robert C. Lafferty from both Baltimore and New York, per the newspaper. It was a cage-like contraption that would stick out of a window like a modern-day air conditioner in which a baby can safely be placed.

The idea was that while baby sat and played and absorbed fresh air and sunlight inside this screened-in box affixed to the window frame, mom could tend to other issues in the home without worrying that her child would be in harm’s way.

The first version of what was termed the “health crib” made its debut in 1913. Made of “willow latticed walls” and covered in mosquito netting to keep out insects, the newspaper noted that “the top is solid to protect the infant from articles that might be dropped through” from apartments on higher floors.

Ten years later, a new version of the health crib was created by a Washington State woman named Emma Read. Her patented “baby cage” had a floor and roof made of sheet metal to keep out the elements. The walls were outfitted with wire “admitting plenty of air and light,” per another New York newspaper, which added this commentary:

“The occupant of the cage cannot possibly fall out, is protected against rain or snow, and enjoys the healthful advantage of unlimited fresh air,” the newspaper noted. “In pleasant weather the child may be kept all day in the outdoor house, eating, sleeping, and amusing itself therein, while under observation from inside the room.”

Did parents stuck in Gotham’s neighborhoods of sunless tenements rush out to buy baby cages? Apparently they were popular in London, but information on and photos of New York City moms and dads putting their kids in them has been hard to come by.

The exception, though, is Eleanor Roosevelt, who reportedly recalled of her years as a young mother that she “knew absolutely nothing about handling or feeding a baby.” She created a baby cage for her daughter Anna in 1906—before the health crib or Read’s baby cage hit the market.

Anna was Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first child (third photo), born when the couple was living in a brownstone at 125 East 36th Street (fourth photo). Knowing the prevailing advice about babies and fresh air thanks to her work at settlement houses, 22-year-old Eleanor “had a wire box attached high above the ground on a side of the house that received no sunlight,” stated author Jan Pottker in her 2005 book, Sara and Eleanor.

Anna was placed in this “jerry-rigged contraption” for a length of time every day as decreed by Eleanor, and the baby subsequently “screamed from the cold and neglect,” wrote Pottker. Finally “a neighbor threatened to call the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.”

At that, Eleanor brought Anna inside and stopped the regular airing.

[Top image: The Keene Sentinal; second image: rarehistoricalphotos.com; third image: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum; fourth image: Larry Gertner for the Historical Marker Database; fifth image: rarehistoricalphotos.com]

Tags: Baby Cage Attached to Window, Baby Cage Eleanor Roosevelt, Baby Cage Health Crib Early 1900s, Baby Cage in New York City, Luther Emmett Holt Airing Out Babies, Photos of Baby Cages in Windows